the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, it charges us with creating a story of six (and only six) sentences that involve the week’s prompt word.

This week, we look in on our favorite detective, Ian Devereaux. We last saw him entering the home of one Dr. Leanne Thunberg. (Previously in the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf)

This week’s prompt word:

SHOWER

I pressed my forehead against the marble wall of the shower and tried to unravel the previous night; I heard the story of Lilith, who some believed was Adam’s first mate in the Garden, a scholarly rumor about a series of books, written but not included in Genesis, something about Moses and the Beatles’ ‘White Album’ and finally a request for help locating my host’s ex-husband.

“Is there room in there for me,” Leanne’s morning contralto cut through the rain-hiss of the showerheads like Joe Cocker at an elementary school Christmas pageant.

Given the shower was of a size and scale to allow a set of barbells and a Stairmaster, I smiled and said, “Sure, what’s the password?’

“Solomon’s Key,” came the up-lilted response; I laughed, remembering how out of my league I was; a feature of most modern homes since the late-20th century, the master-bath in Leanne’s house had as much in common with Second Empire architecture as a Ferrari among chariots in the Colosseum.

Feeling what I suspected was the last whisper of cool air as she opened the glass door, I remembered what I forgot in the day-and-a-half since the night before; I looked for something to write on, but all I could see was condensation on the glass and my host, Leanne.

I was trying to decide which would last longer when the choice was made for me.

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

It is hosted by Denise.

It is premised on the notion that everyone wants to take a prompt word and write a six, (no more and no less), sentence story around it.

This week, the prompt word is:

HUNCH

“Tell us where they have taken the girl and you will be amply rewarded,” The archbishop, clerical rank immunizing him from politeness and consideration, exalted in the presence of a curl to his lip; surely it seemed to say, given the appearance of this man before me, this is a right judgement. Assembled in the nave, the gathered authorities looked upon the man, escorted by the coterie of gendarmes, city officials and clergy, with disdain that had ambitions of hatred.

Down through the years, old Parisians, perhaps as an unconscious accounting of the wondrous events that marked a life drawing to close, told the young people, who, the wiser among them seeking the tales of the old, the better to arm themselves as the path opened before them, about that afternoon in de Notre Dame de París.

The stories vary in the re-telling; sometimes they include the archbishop having a palsy of the hand, an affliction gestated by dark practices, (at least as the nuns and acolytes whispered among themselves); other versions concentrate on the jewels that seemed to glow on the altar behind where he sat upon his cathedra.

All recounting of this particular day include how the sunlight, barricaded behind iron clouds, broke free and, finding a sole pane of unstained glass, created a bright nimbus around the bent shape of the subject of the archbishop’s interrogation.

Straightening himself more than he had since he could remember, Quasimodo smiled with a glint of defiance and said,

“I don’t know, but I do have a hunch.”